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Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Spiteful attempt to blight the prospects of a young band: Tennysons made to recant

Starting up a band and securing gigs on the circuit can be a
tough business, and many obstacles present themselves to aspirant musicians
without the interposition of individuals or groups of people who take a
perverse delight in stymieing creativity in the name of cant of one form or
another. A young indie group from Leicester named The Tennysons appears to have
fallen foul of the self-appointed ‘moral’ guardians of our post-national era –
UAF – specifically its Leicester branch, for its scowling arbiters of what may
and may not be said or thought have pronounced an anathema upon the group,
designating it as possessing dubious and implicitly ‘racist’ sympathies. Why?
Quite simply because one of the group’s members once attended an EDL event some
16 months ago. For the UAF inquisitors of course, this constitutes grounds
enough to damn someone for eternity.

The band has not been accused of employing ‘racist’ lyrics;
no members of the band have been accused of making ‘racist’ statements either
verbally or in print, and yet members of Leicester UAF have taken it upon themselves to try and humiliate members of this band and force them to make a
public recantation of any sympathies with the EDL or the latter’s position. In
order to do so, Leicester UAF have not employed reason, but a dirty underhand
campaign, alleging that its members are ‘racist’ and spreading rumours around
Leicester’s music scene thereby ensuring that venues have cancelled Tennysons
gigs and thereby threatening to ruin the band. The Leicester Mercury states
that ‘A number of the band's shows have been cancelled in the past few weeks as
venues became aware of the allegations against the band.’ Moreover, it quoted Joel Lavender of the Soundhouse as saying "All of the venues are
pulling them from their bills because of these allegations.”

Quite clearly, the members of Leicester UAF have some
explaining to do and some apologies to issue. By making defamatory allegations
about The Tennysons, they have after all inflicted significant damage upon the
band, and the latter would be justified in seeking financial redress for the
snide and baseless insinuations of Leicester UAF, whose spokesman Tom Mycroft
told the Leicester Mercury:

"Everyone is entitled to make mistakes when they're
young and they have made a statement against the EDL. I hope they are sincere
about it."

Mycroft’s statement suggests that he is no longer of
such tender years, and given this fact, he must know that the tactics that he
and his confederates have employed against this young band were dirty and
underhand. The manner in which members of Leicester UAF have behaved has proven
to be far more revealing about them than the targets of their smear campaign,
for the former have displayed a totalitarian mindset that is willing to brook
no dissent, and to crush any who seek to display a different perspective or
take on social questions. What this story proves beyond any doubt is that
Leicester UAF does not support the concept of a free and open society where we
may enjoy the right of free speech and artistic expression, whereas it proves
nothing about the moral integrity of The Tennysons or any one of their members.
Evidently, UAF will not approve of Tennysons song titles such as ‘England
belongs to me’ as all members of the band are English. For UAF to give its
approval to such a song, those singing it would have to be non-indigenous,
preferably of non-European and Muslim stock.

Well Cygnus, it seems that a site called lib.com.org which appears to be some sort of Anarcho-Syndicalist/Anarcho-Communist platform has been taking The Tennysons to task and forcing the latter to pledge themselves to the 'anti-racist' cause as can be seen from the discussion at the following thread: http://libcom.org/forums/united-kingdom/tennysons-edls-pet-band-25052012

The site's commenters truly are an odd bunch who for some reason describe Thilo Sarrazin as 'far right' (a senior social democratic politician 'far right'?) and compare me to Himmler! Just the sort of people, I think, who would have concurred with Stalin's disgusting stigmatisation of Polish patriots who rose up against Nazi occupying forces in Warsaw in 1944 as 'fascists'.

Anonymous said 'Is it too much to ask for the promoters and venue owners to just tell the UAF to get lost?'

That is not as easy as it seems ! It used to be easy when the police who have to handle any complaints against a licensed premises were genuinely neutral, non political and licensing decisions were made by licensing magistrates. The problem now is that if a licensed premises owner has been accused of allowing 'racist' bands to play on their premises various persons of ethnic minority origin and various 'lefties' will complain to the police. The police will warn the licensee to make sure that there are no further 'incidents'. If matters go further instead of the neutral licensing magistrates licensing matters are now handled by politicians on the local council licensing cmmttee. Don't forget that there are some cllr's elected to local councils, usually Muslim cllrs, on a campaign platform in their wards of trying to shut down as many pubs as possible. Such cllrs can even be appointed to the licensing cmmttee !!

To take just one example from my own knowledge. My local is The Fire Brigade Southfield Lane. Last year a very inexperienced young woman was licensee. She and her boyfriend decided to hold a retro music evening. She and her boyfriend had previously managed a pub, The Westfield Hotel in Wyke, South Bradford. The pub was popular with lads from the Wyke Council Estate including some EDL supporters. Some of her previous regulars came to The Fire Brigade to support the music event. A fight started in the asian takeaway across the road, a brick was thrown at the pub window. The police turned up in a van and stormed the pub. A CS gas cylinder was discharged in the pub (which is a breach of police regulations !). Five people were arrested. The entire incident was started by an allegation by an Asian in the takeaway, an uncorroborated allegation, that someone from 'the pub' had stolen his mobile phone. The licensee had never been involved in a previous incident but for this incident, misshandled by the police, she got a final warning !!

I think it's more the case that promoters are dripping them because they are terrible. Easily one of the worst bands I've ever seen.

Plus they have a founded reputation for causing trouble at venues. I saw them in London last night and the promoter has vowed not to book them again and recommend to others they do not too. After the gig they started a fight with a fellow band and then blocked them in the car park for half an hour chanting and waving a Union Flag...

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